


Trust & Tricks

by wallofglass



Category: Holby City
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 10:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14616320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallofglass/pseuds/wallofglass
Summary: John visits Henrik’s office, Henrik thinks about trust. Fluff ensues.





	Trust & Tricks

‘Who’s your trusted friend?’

The question was pecking at Henrik’s brain, somewhere around the back of his cerebral cortex. There were trusted people, a whole slideshow of them behind his eyelids, most of them wearing scrubs. His mind stumbled over the word ‘friend’ but there were a few of them too. Fewer of them. And then there was John. Henrik had never quite trusted him. He had worked with him, impressed and been impressed by him, watched out for him during his desperate schemes, but never trusted him. And he had never been sure that ‘friend’ was the right word for someone he had woken up next to so many times.

‘Henrik?’

Speak of the handsome devil.

‘I’m heading home.’

‘Very good.’ Henrik found refuge in formality but John still hovered in the doorway.

‘Can I help you Professor?’

‘You can start by not calling me Professor. It makes me sound old.’ John grimaced and stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him.

‘John I—‘ Henrik fell silent as John moved closer, standing behind him, and laying a hand on his shoulder.

‘What are you working on?’

‘Just paperwork. Nothing of interest.’

John leaned down to look at the computer screen.

‘Everything you do is of interest to me,’ he said.

Henrik felt him feeling the cashmere of his jumper. John had always liked him in jumpers, liked stealing them in the morning too.

‘You feel tense’ said John. Henrik cleared his throat quietly.

‘It’s been a long week.’

‘Let me make you feel better.’ The ambiguity made Henrik’s chest tight. John rubbed at his shoulders, pushing tension out of his muscles. Henrik sighed, hummed, and leaned his head back against John’s chest. Then John leaned down and kissed him.

Like an electrocuted eel Henrik was out of his seat, knocking John back against the wall.

‘What do you think you’re doing,’ he hissed. John hunched his shoulders and mumbled an apology without looking even slightly sorry. The two men watched each other.

Henrik had never trusted John. How could he when he saw how John used people - used them for the greater good, yes, never for his own glory - but he still used them. He bargained, tit for tat, an authorial credit in a paper for a piece of equipment, a place on a research team for a new idea. Five minutes on his knees to switch lab partners. He did it so naturally it barely felt like a swap. More like a magic trick. And Henrik had enjoyed the show, giving time and help and lending expensive textbooks that John’s scholarship wouldn’t stretch to in return for John’s warmth in his bed. But that was then. Before the world had been shattered by bullets and words. The trick had been revealed and it looked cold and cruel.

John was still watching him, his calm face faltering, his eyes flicking all over Henrik’s face.

‘I don’t have time for your games John. I have nothing to give you. Go home.’

John speechless. That was new. Henrik sighed.

‘I’m tired John.’ He meant it as a closing statement, expected John to turn round and leave, not walk towards him, pull on his arms, wind a hand round his neck. Henrik sighed again, but it was softer, more to do with the feeling of John’s fingers pushing into his hair.

‘I’m tired too.’ They moved closer naturally, Henrik’s hands settling on John’s hips, his chin nudging John’s forehead. They had always fitted together well. John was so much smaller that he had to stand on his tip-toes, his face tilted up, to kiss Henrik. Which was entirely predictable. Henrik tensed and pulled back.

‘No tricks,’ said John with wide eyes. ‘I don’t want anything from you. Except you.’

Gravity had brought them together, which wasn’t the best reason for Henrik to keep kissing John and for John to slide his hands under Henrik’s shirt, but they had done this for worse reasons. There was a calmness in John now, an earnestness which had never been there in the past. He even pulled back with a smile and a ‘not here’ when Henrik pushed his legs back against the desk.

Not here, but somewhere. Probably Henrik’s bed because John kept his space to himself. Busying himself with tidying some folders whilst John went to get his jacket, Henrik thought about trust and tricks and whether or not it was really a trick if both of you knew it.

‘Come to mine.’ John was back in the doorway, where he always was. Just outside Henrik’s life, neither of them crossing the threshold. Watching each other. Henrik nodded curtly which made John laugh, an unguarded grin creasing the corners of his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Totally unbeta’d, barely spellchecked, I just want this pairing to have more content and if I gotta write it myself so be it.


End file.
